They returned to their own room and spent the rest of the day in a mixture of restless training and pointless sitting. Angel wasn’t sure which one he liked less. When they all finally went to sleep that night, he was haunted by visions of the Buried Gods looming in the horizon, raining fire down on the land below.

A soldier arrived the following morning. Nervousness played with determination in his young features. He couldn’t have been any older than Tilly and Alison.

“Captain Brod sent me to get you,” the kid said. “We’re preparing to move out.”

Everyone scrambled out of their sleeping bags in record time. Judging by the speed they’d moved, Angel was pretty sure not a single person in his small camp had actually been asleep these last few hours.

“Looks like we’re ready,” Angel said with a wry grin. “Lead on, then.”

They followed him through the camp. Men and women rushed from building to building, ferrying crates over to the edge of the camp. Brod stood near the door, flanked by several men that Angel recognized from the previous day.

“I hope you’re all ready,” Brod said. “I’d have included you in more of our discussions, but you’ve refused to tell me exactly how you’re taking the other Buried God out.”

“There’s some things that I can’t share,” Angel replied. “Were you able to get us a few men?”

Brod nodded. “They’re already moving into position outside. The majority of my guard will attack the Buried God at the east of the city. Your group will be in charge of the one at the west.”

“All the same to us,” Angel said. “What do we do if everything goes to plan and the Buried Gods fall? Or at least, one of them does.”

“Depending on how things go, I plan to attempt to take the city back as well,” Brod replied. “It’s difficult to plan so far out in a battle like this. If we’re successful in destroying the Buried Gods and have minimal losses, we have a chance of pushing these bastards out of the city permanently. If things go worse than I hope, we’ll regroup here.”

“We may not be able to rejoin you, even if the Buried Gods are destroyed,” Lilian said. “We have a duty to stop the Reawakening, and they’ve got a lead on us. As soon as the Buried Gods here are destroyed or out of commission, we’ll be moving on.”

“That’s fine,” Brod said. “This is our city to save. If you can blow up one of the damn metal monsters, you’ll have done more than your share.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Angel promised. “Where exactly are our men, then? Outside doesn’t exactly give everything away.”

“They’ll be stealing some tanks from our own barracks and firing on the Buried God’s front feet,” Brod replied. “Once they draw enough fire, they’re ordered to retreat. I trust that’s sufficient?”

“More than,” Angel said with a nod. “How long until the attack begins?”

“Two hours, roughly,” Brod replied. “We can’t synchronize the timing as much as we’d like. It’s hard to say if any of the cannons along the city wall will be better defended than others, but all we can do is try.”

“We’ll be off then,” Silver said. “Got a Buried God to fell. Good luck, Captain. I hope you don’t get blown up.”

“Likewise,” Brod replied, his mouth curling up in the barest trace of a grin. “Let’s bury these bastards.”

A murmur of agreement ran through the men and women around them. Angel and his group headed up through the tunnels, retracing their steps. The only thing that accompanied them was the faint splash of their footfalls on the damp ground.

They arrived at a port and Lilian pushed it open, climbing through and then waving for the rest of them to follow.

It was a gray morning in the Barren. The sun had still yet to rise and the sky was covered with a heavy layer of thick clouds. The air was still and the city itself seemed to hold its breath. Angel drew a slow breath, then exchanged a nod with his companions. They headed through the rocky city streets, making their way toward the lower edge of Blackstone.

When they drew near the large cannons lining the walls, all of them ducked under the protection of a jutting rock.

“Now what?” Alison whispered. “I feel like we should help or something.”

“No. We wait,” Silver said. “We have our role, and they have theirs. I figure the guards will start by torching large portions of the city, then rush the cannons and start firing on the desert. Magitech cannons do some serious damage, so the residual heat should cloud the area for a few seconds while everyone makes a mad dash. That’s when we move.”

And so they waited. Angel resisted the urge to drum his fingers on the rock and instead settled for clenching his fingers and counting the seconds off in his mind.

“There,” Silver whispered, nodding at a location near one of the cannons, where a faint whisp of smoke was curling into the air. “They’ve started.”

Flames sprouted across the edges of the city, and with them came a hissing crackle that pierced the still morning air.

He was right. Within seconds, the dots of flame started to connect. The cloud of smoke rising into the air grew heavier. A soldier rushed past them, pulling clothes soaked in a dark liquid from a large bag and tossing them on ground behind him. A second soldier trailed him, touching a sparking black stick to the trail the first man had made, setting it alight.

“Clever,” Silver said. “I was wondering how they’d get the fire to stick. Looks like its spreading quickly too.”

The flame roared past them, shooting down the street in the men’s wake. The heat from the fire licked at Angel, but since the city was almost entirely stone, it didn’t have any real way to spread farther.

Another minute passed. A clang echoed through the streets from the direction of one of the cannons. Like it was a start signal, hundreds of yells lifted into the still sky. Metal clashed on metal and Magitech guns barked as fights broke out all across the city.

“Time to start moving,” Angel said. “We need to be at the edge of the city by the time they get the cannons.”

They broke away from their hiding spot. Sticking close to the path of flame, they started down to the city’s base. The sounds of combat accompanied them on the way. They didn’t pass close enough to the cannon to see how the fight was going. Everyone started pulling on their artifacts as they grew closer to the edge.

Their answer came a minute later. A thunderous roar split the air and a beam of crackling blue light leapt from a cannon at the far end of the city, slamming into the desert and sending a massive plume of sand into the sky. Crackles of energy arced off the blast, but they didn’t even get a chance to hit the ground before another cannon fired.

Blue hell rained down upon the sand. Like the beat of a war drum, the cannons fired one after another. Sand and soot rained from the sky, and the explosions drowned out any other noise.

Far above them, the Buried God slowly turned its head. Angel’s blood prickled. “Go! Now! For its feet!”

He grabbed his board and threw it onto the ground, only hoping that the others would follow him as he accelerated as fast as he could into the scorched Barren.

A low hum filled the air. Within the Buried God’s eye, a mote of red light intensified. There was a brilliant flash and a sharp crack. A shockwave washed over them and an explosion shook the city a moment later.

Of one of the cannons, all that remained was a shattered, smoking crater the size of a city block.

“Holy shit!” Silver yelled. “That’s what we’re up against?”

“It’s firing again!” Lilian yelled. “Just get to its legs! Shield your face when you enter that cloud of soot. It’s going to burn!”

Angel had already wrapped his scarf around his face. Large portions of the sand around them had been turned to glass by the cannons. Through the sand and ash floating in the air, it shimmered faintly, reflecting the glow of blue and red Magitech weapons scarring the desert.

Another explosion rocked the city, but none of them had time to look back. They hit the wall of superheated sand and shot within its relative safety. Hot ash stung Angel’s exposed skin and the smell of smoke filled his lungs.

He squinted as hard as he could, pushing the pain away and tiling his head to try and keep as much of the debris from getting into his eyes as possible. Purple energy crackled at his side as they grew closer to the enormous beast. He set his jaw and pressed onward. The Star Fragment was hungry, and Angel planned to feed it a god.